AUGUSTA – State inspectors have discovered an additional 35 elevators that potentially have the same fatal flaw that killed an 8-year-old boy last month.

The 35 elevators with the door-and-gate design were in operation when the state inspected them, but all have been condemned. None can be put back in service until the problem is fixed, according to Kristine Ossenfort of the state Department of Professional and Financial Regulation.

Officials did not say where the elevators are located or how many had valid state licenses.

The findings were released six days after the state began making emergency inspections to find out if other elevators have the same problem as the one that crushed a Maryland boy at the Bethel Inn last month.

Joseph Smith, of Bel Air, Md., became wedged in a 7-inch gap between the elevator’s outer door and inner gate on Aug. 23. He was crushed when the elevator was called to another floor.

This year, a 4-inch standard went into effect. A 5-inch standard had been in place for many years before that.

The state had inspected 96 elevators by midafternoon Friday, so more than 36 percent of those that were examined this week violated the space standard for elevators with the door-and-gate design. Four of the 96 elevators were not in use when they were inspected, leaving 57 operating elevators that met state standards.

Inspectors hope to inspect the remaining 80 elevators by the end of the week.

State officials say about 181 of the state’s 2,800 elevators have the door-and-gate design.

Ossenfort said state officials “are concerned that we have found so many” elevators with excessive spacing. She said Commissioner S. Catherine Longley plans to propose standards, including continuing education for elevator inspectors.

Rep. John Richardson, D-Brunswick, who co-chairs the committee that oversees Longley’s agency, said the number of violations was “a lot more than I expected.”

State investigators determined that Stephen McDuffie, a state-licensed private inspector who examined the Bethel Inn elevator on June 8, failed to note eight flaws in his report, including the large space between the door and gate. McDuffie has not returned repeated telephone calls to his Portland office.

Longley launched this week’s inspection effort after lawmakers complained that the state was not moving quickly enough in response to the Bethel Inn accident.

State regulators had written to the elevator owners Aug. 31 that they had one month to have their elevators inspected by a private inspector. But the Legislature’s Business and Economic Development Committee demanded swifter action.

The legislative committee also demanded weekly reports on the progress of inspections. The information released Friday was the first such report since the emergency inspections began Sunday.

Regulators say private inspectors are to immediately shut down elevators with life-threatening defects. Owners have six weeks to repair less serious problems.

State regulators revealed after the Bethel Inn accident that 266 elevators had expired licenses. Some had not been inspected recently, and others failed inspection and had not been repaired.